Amy Parham said her son, Rhett, is a fan of the video game Bomber Man. He drew the bomb at home, but took it to school.

“They actually reiterated to me they knew he was non-violent,” said Parham. “They knew he was not actually having a bomb, creating or making a bomb. School officials told her it was a question of “perception.”

Rhett will get a hearing to see if his perceived offense is related to his disability. (I think he’s on the autism spectrum, which would mean he’s not good at reading social cues.)

When he was young, a local TV show called Miss Pat’s Playroom showed kids’ drawings. He sent one in. Miss Pat said: “And little Darren Miller sent in this picture of an airplane bombing a house.”

No one panicked. No one called for Miss Pat to be thrown off the air. No one called for me to be psychoanalyzed. Back then people were smart enough to realize that boys draw such pictures and it’s perfectly normal, just like playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians.

“Now we’ve taken what is perfectly normal and criminalized it, stigmatized it, and freaked out over it,” he writes. Which is stupid.

Nonetheless, high school junior was charged with possession of an explosive device and booked into Harborfields Detention Center. Later — it’s not clear how much later — charges were dropped, reports Salon. After all, he didn’t actually possess an explosive device. My house has chemicals that probably could be mixed to create a bomb. And we’ve got lots of electronic parts. I’m sure my husband is capable of building a bomb. All that stops him is a lack of homicidal intent. And, fortunately, he’s completed high school.

A former Boy Scout, her son “volunteers to help senior citizens,” said the mother.

She says his passion for collecting old stuff, taking it apart and rebuilding things lead to this arrest.

“He takes the parts and he builds things with them. Good things,” she explained.

That’s probably why he attends Cedar Creek, a magnet school with an engineering focus and a stress on hands-on learning.

School officials said the student hadn’t made threats and wasn’t in conflict with anyone, but the superintendent praised the teacher for reporting the doodler to police. Post-Newtown hysteria will be with us for awhile.

Gossiping is also a criminal offense these days. The Press also reports:

A 15-year-old girl was arrested at Mainland Regional High School and charged with false public alarm after she allegedly sent a text message to a friend stating that she had heard a rumor that there would be a shooting at the school on Friday.

If she’d heard such a rumor, as opposed to making it up herself, wouldn’t she have a public duty to pass it on? After all, the Cedar Creek teacher who turned in the doodling student wasn’t arrested for “false public alarm.”

Teacher Kennet Santana, 35, heard two explosions at San Mateo’s Hillside High and saw a 17-year-old boy in a black tactical vest following fleeing students. With “no time for a lot of thinking,” the English Language Development teacher grabbed the boy.

“I put him in a bear hug and then I decided to flip him and put him on the ground,” he said. “That’s when the thinking came in — I thought — ’If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to his parents later and if I’m right I’m going to hold this kid down.’” At that moment, a teacher came out of a nearby classroom and Santana told her to go get help. “That’s when the principal (Jeff Gilbert) came with another counselor,” he said. “Between the three of us – the principal took an arm, I held onto an arm and (the counselor) took the legs. We restrained the kid until the police came.” When asked if the young man said anything to him, Santana said: “He said he couldn’t breathe — which was too bad for him I guess.”

“All the while that the teachers and principal are confronting this kid, holding him down and tackling him, he’s got eight live pipe bombs attached to his person,” said San Mateo Police Lt. Mike Brunicardi. Police said the suspect, a former student, also had a two-foot sword and a chain saw. More pipe bombs were found at his home.